Folk tale Quotes

“Er, hello, Chewie," he said politely."Woof," the dog said back."Chewie is a Newfoundland," Beka explained. "They're great water dogs. They swim better than we do, and even have webbed feet. They're often used for water rescue, and the breed started out as working dogs for fishermen.""Uh-huh... Chewie - I guess you named him for Chewbacca in Star Wars. I can see why; they're both gigantic and furry."Beka giggled. "I never thought of that. Actually, Chewie is short for Chudo-Yudo. Also, he chews on stuff a lot, so it seemed fitting.""Chudo what?" Marcus said. The dog made a snuffling sound that might have been canine laughter."Chudo-Yudo," Beka repeated. "He's a character out of Russian fairy tales, the dragon that guards the Water of Life and Death. You never heard of him?"Marcus shook his head. "My father used to tell the occasional Irish folk tale when I was a kid, but I'm not familiar with Russian ones at all. Sorry.""Oh, don't be," she said cheerfully. "Most of them were pretty gory, and they hardly ever had happy endings.""Right." Marcus looked at the dog, who gazed alertly back with big brown eyes, as if trying to figure out if the former Marine was edible or not. "So, you named him after a mythical dragon from a depressing Russian story. Does anyone get eaten in that story, just out of curiosity?"Chewie sank down onto the floor with a put-upon sigh, and Beka shook her head at Marcus. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course people got eaten. But don't worry. Chewie hasn't taken a bite out of anyone in years. He's very mellow for a dragon.”

“And those characters [in a fairy tale] dwell in a moral world, whose laws are as clear as the law of gravity. That too is a great advantage of the folk tale. It is not a failure of imagination to see the sky blue. It is a failure rather to be weary of its being blue- and not to notice how blue it is. And appreciation of the subtler colors of the sky will come later. In the folk tale, good is good and evil is evil, and the former will triumph and later will fail. This is not the result of the imaginative quest. It is rather its principle and foundation. It is what will enable the child later on to understand Macbeth, or Don Quixote, or David Copperfield.”

“Fairy tales and folk tales are for children and childlike people, not because they are little and inconsequential, but because they are as enormous as life itself.”

“Technically a memoir, 'The Woman Warrior' becomes almost magical through its inclusion of folk tales, dreams, and revisions.”

“Without books, everything would have been crooked. Without books, the wisdom in books today would have been fairy and folk tales. Without books the whole truth about life would have been imaginations and a guessing game”

“I adore forgotten words, long lost folk tales, and books with pages soft and crumbling. I am a collector of scents and memories. The things that others bury are the things I hold most dear.”

“Mama, Mama, help me get homeI'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.I found me a werewolf, a nasty old muttIt showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.Mama, Mama, help me get homeI'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreckIt showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.Mama, Mama, put me to bedI won't make it home, I'm already half-dead.I met an Invalid, and fell for his artHe showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.-From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tales”

“In Sussex, if it's not the Devil that makes an appearance, then it's likely to be a dragon.”

“Round these men stories tended to group themselves, sometimes deserting more ancient heroes for the purpose. Round poets have they gathered especially, for poetry in Ireland has always been mysteriously connected with magic.”